


Echoes

by HSBacklash01



Category: G1 - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSBacklash01/pseuds/HSBacklash01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes revelations come in small and unexpected ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

“And why, pray tell, should I waste my talents on repairing something as trivial as a converter? And I expect a more sufficient answer than ‘because I said so," I demanded, quite rightly I thought. The challenge had halted Megatron in mid-answer, and I found difficulty controlling the smile creeping onto my face. The obvious consternation was glorious.

“Starscream...,” he began in that irritatingly slow “why don’t you simply do as I say?’ voice. “The converters are an old design, as is the ship –“

“—and since my knowledge is as out-of-date as it is, I’m the lucky individual to trot down to the bowels of this rusting leviathan and pick at them until they work,” I finished for him. That was it, then: he was sending me off on some mundane task even Rumble could have accomplished just to get rid of me. I saw the mocking grin he displayed to those present, and disgustedly brushed him away with a hand. He was constantly throwing that up in my face. Fine. “Replace you with a garbage can with a recording of a few choice phrases and no one would know the difference, Megatron,” I growled at him.

“Now, Starscream!” he bellowed. The satisfaction I felt at having the last laugh was hidden when I left.

I was still furious, however. I almost prayed someone would give me an excuse to lay into them as I made my way back to my quarters. How dare he! I waited until the door shut once inside before giving the wall a swift kick. I noticed then that my hands were numb, I had them clenched into fists so tightly. And I had let him goad me again. He knew, as I did with him, just what to say to get the other, and I had fallen for it. Which made me angrier. As I went about gathering the tools I’d need, I noticed the curses I muttered and stopped, suddenly embarrassed. Embarrassed because...someone I did not want to think about would have lectured me about using language like that. I threw the scanner in my hand across the room and immediately regretted the action as it impacted a wall, showering pieces onto the floor.

 _Wonderful, Starscream. Something else to fix. Why don’t you break the window there and flood your quarters while you’re at it?_ I pressed the heels of my hands to my head. No. I will not have a conversation with myself; only crazy people do that. The headache I was trying to ignore was attempting to reassert itself. It wasn’t really a headache, though, more of a vague feeling of something not right. This is stress, I told myself. Alright; I need something to keep occupied.

For some reason even I couldn’t fathom, none of the lifts directly accessed the engine room. It was necessary to descend three flights of stairs further to reach the most cramped, damp, and filthy area of the ship. Well, it likely could compete with Skywarp’s quarters for most filthy. There always seemed to be puddles here and there on the floor, and I could swear the entire area would crumple under the weight from above. _Oh, yes, just set yourself up for a nice panic attack. Your wings aren’t in the way; the walls are closing in._ My hands were shaking: I was shaking. I grabbed an overhead support strut and glared at it, concentrating to make the feeling go away, and noticed the writing, partially obscured.

The writing was in Decepticon, done in a welder’s pen. At first glance, I thought it directions some absent-minded mech on the construction crew had scribbled. Inspecting it closer, I made out names. Willing the sense of being closed-in to the periphery, I peered behind the strut and silently read the signatures. I smiled a little. Memory put a face to some of them, then voices and pieces of conversation. A few I recalled from the Academy, some dead, some even now streaking through the skies of Cybertron. Each had included well-wishes and admonitions to the future crew to use the results of their hard work for the glory of the Decepticon cause.

Those inclusions settled uneasily on me. There was nothing glorious about hiding from Autobots on a Primus-forsaken, backwater planet in a battleship that was nothing more than a motionless hulk now, by a leader who had turned the expansion of the empire into a personal vendetta. I stared at the names once more. Many had hoped and yearned to be numbered among those to accompany Megatron on his grand endeavor, to be included in the ‘elite’.

 _This isn’t the elite of the Decepticon army; this is the lunatic fringe,_ I thought sourly. With very few exceptions, I could do without most of them.


End file.
